1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information collection retrieval system for searching for facilities that provide products or services by utilizing the Internet and/or other communication networks.
2. Description of Related Art
An information collection retrieval system has been known conventionally that collects information items from providers of products and/or services by utilizing the Internet, car navigation network and other communication networks, stores them in a database, and provides a user with on-target information required (see Relevant Reference 1, for example).
The information collection retrieval system has a database for storing facility identifying information fed from an information provider terminal and content information including data about facilities, products and/or services in accordance with a specified format as individual information items. When the individual information items are stored in the database, their content information is associated with a basic classification table. The basic classification table is searched according to the individual facilities and products and/or services or combinations of them sent from a consumer terminal. Then applicable individual information items including the facility identifying information satisfying the consumer's request are read from the database to be transmitted to the display unit of the consumer terminal. According to such an information collection retrieval system, since it classifies the same facilities from a variety of viewpoints, it can prevent the omission of them from the retrieval.
Relevant Reference 1: Japanese patent application laid-open No. 11-328217/1999.
The method of classifying the individual information items about the facilities the conventional information collection retrieval system employs cannot carry out classification beyond the number of items of the predetermined classification. Thus, when a very detailed retrieval keyword such as a product name is supplied, it sometimes happens that the applicable classification is absent. In addition, since the classification must be prepared in advance, when a retrieval keyword designating a new product or service is input, it is not unlikely that its applicable classification is not yet prepared.
Furthermore, if a relevant classification of the product or service required by the user is not present, the user must speculate about the classification that is likely to include the product or service. Accordingly, it sometimes happens that the user can acquire only part of many relevant facilities as the retrieval results, or that only part of the many retrieval results includes the facilities meeting the user request, thereby hindering the user from acquiring only the facilities relevant to the user request.
Moreover, to update information registered via an information registration terminal, it is necessary for the information provider to send the information to be registered again. Thus, a problem can occur that the retrieval information is old and different from the present conditions, and even if new products or services are handled, they cannot be hit in the retrieval in some cases.